Autocatalytic networks (basics)
- Collections where members catalyze each other’s formation, enabling self‑maintenance.
Minimal proto‑agency criteria
- Closed‑loop maintenance: restore target ratios under perturbations.
- Counterfactual sensitivity: different interventions yield detectably different futures.
- Budgeted control: sensing/memory/actuation costs explicit.
Perturb‑and‑restore protocols
- Microfluidic feeds/inhibitors with periodic disturbances.
- Measure recovery time, invariants maintained, control gain.
Metrics (recovery, invariants, control gain)
- Stability region size; robustness; information‑to‑work conversion.
Further reading: Operational Criteria, Research Directions (autocatalysis tracks), Glossary.